Patrick campaign praised for its statewide diversity

Yawu Miller

In a state that is more than 80 percent white, people of color rarely play prominent roles in statewide campaigns. But in Deval Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign, three of the five deputy campaign managers were people of color.

“It’s been widely noted that Deval Patrick is going to be the first African American governor of Massachusetts,” said Joel Barrera, executive director of the Commonwealth Legislative Seminar. “What isn’t noted is that within his campaign was an unprecedented diversity of campaign staff — not just volunteers, but deputy directors.”

Last week, Barrera and the Commonwealth Legislative Seminar honored the Patrick campaign with a celebratory dinner that brought together campaign staff of color who helped secure Patrick’s historic victory.

The dinner, held in Fisher College’s student center, brought together black, Latino and Asian campaign workers and volunteers for a celebration of their newfound political clout.

“We are very happy and we owe a great debt to the candidate Deval Patrick,” said state Sen. Jarrett Barrios, a co-founder of the Commonwealth Legislative Seminar. “And also to all those who made sure his message was heard throughout the Commonwealth.”

The Commonwealth Legislative Seminar is a six-week program that introduces community activists to the workings of the state Legislature.

The program has given scores of black, Latino and Asian activists a view of the inner workings of the state’s political system, but there’s nothing like a hotly contested campaign to give political operatives valuable experience.

While Patrick campaign deputy manager Lily Mendez Morgan had worked on political campaigns in the past, neither Richard Chacon, who left his post as ombudsman at the Boston Globe, nor Ron Bell, who led Dunk the Vote, had ever worked on a partisan campaign.

All three spoke of how inspiring Patrick’s campaign was to ordinary citizens.

“This campaign made it very clear that black people and Latinos are smart voters,” Bell said. “We vote when we have something to vote for.”

Bell pointed out that when strategists in Patrick’s campaign made plans for traditionally low-voting precincts in Boston, they expected to get 35,000 votes.

But when the numbers came in from the Nov. 7 election, they found those precincts had yielded 50,000 votes for Patrick. The increased turnout in those predominantly black and Latino precincts is what Mendez Morgan says is the result of a perfect storm.

Patrick’s campaign benefited from years of get-out-the-vote work in communities of color as well as from his charisma as a candidate able to connect with voters, according to Mendez Morgan.

“In this work, we’ve always said [that] people will vote if you give them a candidate to vote for,” she said. “Here we had a candidate who spoke to our issues running a campaign that involved us from the beginning.”

While the campaign’s statewide headquarters was located in an industrial area of Charlestown, Patrick opened offices in the heart of some of the state’s lower income areas, including Springfield and Grove Hall, Bell noted.

Mendez Morgan said Patrick’s campaign was diverse enough so it could reach out to voters in Spanish, Haitian Creole (Kreyòl), Cape Verdean Creole (Crioulo), Portuguese and other languages. The candidate’s willingness to support immigrant’s issues also helped boost turnout in communities of color, she noted.

“When his opponents tried to use immigration as a wedge issue, we used it as a catalyst to boost turnout,” she said.

Patrick easily defeated Lt. Gov. Kerry Healy, ending a 16-year Republican reign in the corner office.